Page 22 of The Good Girl Effect (Salacious Legacy #1)

Jack

“ F eeling okay?” I ask.

Camille is sitting on the counter downstairs in the kitchen, wrapped in her short white robe and guzzling a glass of water like it’s medicine. Her feet glide slowly back and forth, her single braid resting over her shoulder.

She nods, watching me over the glass.

“Aftercare is important. Don’t let anyone try to skip it, understand?”

I’m an asshole for skipping it before, and if I’m going to be introducing her to the basics, then aftercare must be involved.

I hate to think of Camille finding another partner at the club or somewhere else who doesn’t take the time to ensure she’s okay after a rope or submissive session.

Although if I’m honest with myself, any vision of her at the club with someone else irritates me.

I cross my arms over my chest as I stare at her. I’ve come to love this silence between us. It’s as natural as speaking with anyone else, this intense eye contact without any of the awkwardness.

But at the same time, I’m dying to know what is going on inside Camille’s head.

I want to hear her thoughts and opinions on everything we’re doing.

Even more…I want to hear her thoughts and opinions about me .

Does she find me as intriguing as I find her?

Does she think about me at night while lying in bed?

Does she want me , or is this all about the bondage to her?

This is dangerous. As fascinated as I am by Camille, I can’t let anything romantic happen between us. For my daughter’s sake, I need to keep it together.

“Before you go to sleep, I want you to write me a letter telling me how tonight felt. If you didn’t like anything, put it in the letter. Is that clear?”

I keep my tone flat and commanding, but it’s a cover. What I really want to do is settle between her legs, stroke her cheek softly, and ask her to spill every thought in her head.

Nodding, she takes another sip of the water. Then my eyes cascade down her body, landing on the rope marks written across her legs. They are fucking beautiful. It’s a shame they’ll fade away by morning.

My hands twitch, wanting to trace the lines on her skin.

Quickly, I snap out of it, focusing on her face instead of her bare legs.

After her glass is finished, I take it, setting it in the sink before returning to her. Stepping close, I lift one of her legs by the ankle and inspect her foot for any damage from the knots. It’s definitely not an excuse just to get to touch her again.

She bites her bottom lip as she often does—driving me absolutely mad—while I gently run my fingers over her ankle. It’s more intimate than it should be, and I sense the tension filling the space between us.

In just a few short weeks, this woman has somehow found her way under my skin and into my brain. I’m supposed to be keeping things professional, but I can’t stop thinking about her nearly every moment of my day. I think about keeping her safe, keeping her here, keeping her content.

I think about her adorable button nose and the light freckles cluttered down the slope.

I think about her beautiful, big blue eyes and the way she tends to tip her chin down so she’s often staring through her thick lashes.

I think about her full pouty lips, often covered in pink or red lipstick, and the way she pinches the bottom one between her teeth while she concentrates.

It feels so wrong. Em has only been gone two years. What is wrong with me?

I’ve lusted after plenty of women since my wife passed. In fact, that was my coping mechanism of choice for a long time, but this is different. I never cared about them.

Any other woman would have obeyed the basic rules I set—stay out of rooms, don’t pry about my job, don’t ask any questions. Camille broke every damn one, but I’m not nearly as angry as I should be. Instead, I’m fascinated by her. If she wasn’t so fucking cute, maybe I’d have less patience.

When I look at Camille and see the kindness in her eyes, especially her kindness toward me , which I don’t fucking deserve, I feel myself slipping.

I should be ashamed of how I’ve behaved.

Those damn rules were meant to keep people like her out of my life, and now I find myself actually enjoying our time together. I’m glad she broke them.

She is infuriatingly curious and stubborn. I’ve never met someone so strong-willed in my life. My daughter adores her, and it’s obvious the feeling is mutual. I can’t find a single fault with this girl, and even when she pisses me off, it’s so goddamn endearing I can’t be mad.

The way I’m starting to feel about Camille frightens me. I have to keep her at a distance, or someone is going to get hurt.

Quickly, I clear my throat and drop her foot.

“Looks good. Now go to bed and get some sleep. But not before you write me that letter, understood?”

She nods as she jumps off the counter, coming toe-to-toe with me. “Yes, sir,” she says, and my resolve crumbles.

As she stands so close, I worry that she can see everything I’m hiding. No matter how cold and closed off I am with her, I fear she can see past all that and will know my secret—that I adore her. Even when I know I shouldn’t.

“Good night,” she whispers before moving around me and going to her room. The sound of her voice drags me from the reverie.

I go into my room, closing the door. Trying to busy myself, I check emails and clean myself up in my bathroom. Every few minutes, my eyes drift to the door, waiting for the appearance of the folded-up white piece of paper, but it never comes.

Minutes drag into hours, and I start to grow irritated.

Where is she?

I know I should go to bed and forget it. Get her out of my head. Go back to living my own life.

But I can’t. I’ve grown addicted to her handwritten scribbles on lined paper. I want her thoughts and feelings.

I gave her an order, and she didn’t obey.

After trying to sleep and forget it, I give up after another hour when it’s clear there is no sign of peace until I face her.

It’s sometime around three in the morning when I march out of my bedroom and down the stairs. I creep slowly down the hall, careful not to wake my daughter. When I reach Camille’s door, I find it open just a crack.

What has gotten into me? This is the second time I’ve lurked outside her door in the middle of the night like some kind of creep. Granted, last time I was drunk, but still. This isn’t right.

And I blame her for getting into my head. For being too beautiful. Too captivating. Too perfect.

I press open the door of her room to find it dark and quiet. By the light coming in through the window, I see Camille’s blond curls strewn over the pillow. Tiptoeing closer, I hover over her and watch her as she sleeps, hugging one of the pillows to her body.

Still mostly naked, her bare leg is draped over the pillow. The way it’s nestled against her body makes my dick twitch in my pants.

Part of me wonders if I could just fuck Camille and get it out of my system. I could lose interest in her the same way I do every other woman I take to bed. But what if I don’t? What if one of us gets attached?

It takes everything in me not to crawl into her bed right now.

She’d welcome it, I know it. Although if she didn’t want me, that would make all this so much easier.

But I can tell by the way she moves around me, the way she submits so beautifully, the way she spread her legs for me for that photo—she wants this as much as I do.

Walk away, Jack.

Finally listening to the voice of reason in my head, I turn my back on the beautiful woman sleeping in her bed and walk toward the door. On my way out, I notice the piece of paper and pen on her desk.

She did write the letter, or at least she started it.

It’s too dark to read in here, so I snatch it off the desk and carry it with me as I slip out of her room, closing the door to the same place it was when I found it.

Then I walk down to my daughter’s room.

Standing in the doorway, I watch her sleep.

It’s like my heart is no longer in my body but now across the room in that bed.

As I watch her sleep, I just keep reminding myself—she’s safe, she’s alive, she’s happy.

That’s all that matters. She doesn’t need me.

I can’t watch her for long before the shame and regret start to creep in.

Swallowing my pride, I close her door and head back up to my room. When I get there, I crawl into my own bed alone and read what she wrote.

Dear Jack,

It feels wrong to call you Jack now. Should I call you sir? I liked calling you that downstairs.

Sir,

I smile to myself at that. I’ve been called sir before, but hearing it from her is different, and I like it.

You told me to write down everything I was feeling tonight, so here you go.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, I love what we do upstairs in that room. It doesn’t make any sense. Being tied up should be terrible. It should make me feel afraid and panicked, but it’s the opposite. I’m relaxed and at ease, and for that short time, my mind is just quiet.

If I were with anyone else, I think I would be afraid. They could hurt me or take advantage of me, and I would feel like a fool for putting myself in that situation. But I know you won’t hurt me. How do I know that? I’m not sure. But I do.

I guess what I’m saying is…I trust you.

And the only other man I trusted was my father. All little girls should be able to trust their fathers.

But then mine died. Which was the most deceitful thing he’s ever done. He left me alone in this world, and now I have no one.

So now I’m letting a grumpy American man tie me up in his secret room.

This letter has gotten off topic. So I’m definitely going to throw this away and rewrite it in the morning.

And since you’ll never read this, I’ll just say… I desperately want to know what it feels like to be fucked while tied up, and I’m sad that you won’t ever let that person be you.

God, I hope you never read this.

I read that last part over and over, unable to keep the grin off my face. Even though this just makes me want what I can’t have even more.

There is so much in this letter to love. For one, the fact that Camille loves being bound. Everything she describes here is exactly what she should be feeling when in bondage.

Second, getting a glimpse into her life and the death of her father feels like getting a gift I’m not worthy of. Camille is not just some mechanical figure to fulfill a role. She’s a living, breathing, real person with a real history. She knows grief.

And like she’s already told me in her letters, she has desires and dreams like every other woman.

We are tiptoeing too close to this line we’re not supposed to cross, but I can’t help it. Something about her draws me closer. She makes me want to throw out all my rules, boundaries, and goals just to have a moment to feel her, touch her, taste her.

With that, I lean back on my bed and close my eyes, holding her letter to my chest as I slide my hand into my briefs and take hold of my cock. It’s already thick and pulsing with desire.

I reread the last line of her letter as I stroke myself. I hear her voice in my head, saying how much she wants to be fucked —that word exactly. And not just fucked by anyone but fucked by me.

I hold the letter to my nose, searching for her scent like a dog as I stroke myself faster.

In my head, I have her hog-tied and bound in that room across the hall.

I picture her body laid out before me, and I can touch her all I want.

I imagine myself playing with her cunt, slipping inside her just to hear the noises she’d make.

I picture myself licking and nibbling every inch of her body.

My cock tightens, but I hold back, wanting to let this fantasy play out a little longer.

Then I remember the picture on my phone. Quickly, I drop the letter on the bed and grab my phone from the nightstand. It takes me a moment to open the app and find the photo I snapped, and it’s enough to have my cock leaking at the tip.

Her bent legs are parted, and I can just barely make out the shape of her pussy through the thin fabric of her white panties. I can see the tuft of hair above her clit and the lines of her folds, a hint of moisture darkening the fabric.

I let out a groan as I stare at this image, feeling like a deviant for all the depraved things I’d like to do to her.

When I imagine it’s her lovely cunt and not my fist that I’m fucking, my body starts to strain and seize with my climax. My head is thrown back, and my breathing shallows as I spray my chest with the sticky white jets of my own cum.

This is what she does to me. This is the mess I’ve become because of that one woman.

But even if I knew that firing her and cleaning my life of her would solve all my problems, I'd never do it.

I’m only a man after all.